


don't get too close (it's dark inside)

by pockets



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Ableist Language, M/M, Obsessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:32:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockets/pseuds/pockets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick has a thing with numbers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't get too close (it's dark inside)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even really sure what this is other than 9k words of gibberish, but I kind of liked it so I thought I'd post it. The chronology kind of bounces around every once in a while, so I apologize for any confusion that causes.
> 
> As a disclaimer: this is a work of fiction that contains obsessive compulsive-like behavior and ableist language that may or may not be triggering to some people. Please be advised.  
> Also, in no way do I mean to imply that this is how people who suffer from such conditions act. Most of the behaviors in this either come from my own experiences and others that I've just made up.
> 
> So after all that preamble, I hope you enjoy!

  


He’s throwing up before he even really knows what’s happening.

It’s a rush of white noise and static and his arms feel so leaden and heavy; he can’t even steady himself on the car door he’s leaning out of. Pulled off to the side of the road like a drunk. He can’t. Can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t think. He’s vomiting and all he can hear is the static. It surrounds him, clouds him like wool, like cotton that muffles the whole fucking world. It deafens, stifles everything else and here he is, teeth chattering. He can’t—

He thinks, with sudden, stunning clarity, _God, if Jonny saw me now, fucking pathetic, a goddamn disappointment._  


He can’t.  


_one, two, three, four_  


He just can’t.  


\----  


Patrick has a thing with numbers.  


And counting.  


A _thing._  


It’s stupid, annoying more than anything else. But he deals with it.  


It’s fine.  


He’s fine.  


So maybe he wakes up every morning and hopes it’ll suddenly be gone. This thing. He just wants it to be gone. So maybe that’s true.  


He hopes and hopes and hopes and hopes—  


But then he turns over to look at his phone on his bedside table and he stares and stares until he can't stand it anymore and taps _one, two, three, four_ on the hardwood. Only four. Always four.  


He can't.  


He really can't.  


He just wants it to stop.  


\----  


It started as a superstition, a habit that he'd picked up from somewhere, from someone, knocking his stick against the boards during warm up  


_one, two, three, four_  


Or tapping the tip of his skate against the ice at the beginning and end of each period  


_one, two, three, four_  


It was for good luck. He would tap his stick or his skates or both and it’d make his racing heart slow until he’d feel good enough to play. Good enough to win. And if he didn't get a chance to or forgot to count before going out on the ice, then everything would feel wrong and weird and terrible and he just wouldn’t be able to get his shit together and they'd lose. He’d lose.  


Simple, cause and effect, cause and effect.  


He’s seen tons of other athletes do the same types of things: sticking to the same schedules, waking up and leaving for the rink at the same time on game days. It wasn't a big deal. It wasn’t like his routines got in the way of his life, or anything. No one noticed and it wasn’t like, a thing. Fuck, Seabs’ superstitions were worse than anyone’s, but he still managed to do just fine. It was just something players did. The kind of thing that Tazer would give him shit for maybe, sort of believing in. For good luck.  


_one, two, three, four_  


But then the season ended, cut out early by the 'Yotes and he felt like the ground was shaking underneath his skates, a rush of white noise and his face felt numb, fuzzy around the edges and he couldn’t even steady himself; he’d had to lean on Jonny and _he’d known_ —he’d known it was going to end this way. Because. Because he hadn't...he'd forgotten...he hadn't gotten a chance to...  


Well.  


He’d fucked up.  


It was nothing. It was nothing until suddenly it became everything.  


The season ended, and that should've been it.  


The season ended, but the counting didn’t.  


\----  


It’s late and there’s no one on the roads.  


There’s no one to see him gripping the handle on his car door like a lifeline. Like it’s going to ground him, keep him from letting the static fog surround him, keep him from fucking himself up more than he already was.  


His other hand is latched tight onto the seat belt, holding him still mostly inside of the car as he hangs his head down, heaving and spitting out bile. Air rushes in and out through his nose with every quick, stuttered breath that mimicked his rapid heartbeat and all he can do is close his eyes, squeeze them tight, and count _onetwothreefour_ —  


He dry heaves again, his gut a tight mess, neck straining and he hates the feeling of tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. _Hates it._  


He hates it. He hates it all. He hates how everything is going to shit. He hates that he feels like his own life is out of his control and he hates that it’s _all his fault._  


His body feels useless. Weak with lack of oxygen and the heady, white noise buzz.  


He hates it.  


_He just wants it to stop._  


\----  


His mom used to call him neurotic when he was younger. Mostly when he’d complain about people not clearing the time off of the microwave clock, or when his sisters or his dad or his friends would leave their stuff just lying around the house, ignoring their clutter. They’d all thought it was endearing, his neat-freak, borderline obsessive tendencies.  


Eventually, he’d had to get over his need to keep his space clean and orderly, because really, how clean can you expect things to be when you’re constantly living with hockey players?  


So, yeah. It’d mostly gone away. Whatever that was, it had been pretty much completely gone by the time he’d been drafted. It wasn’t like it was a _thing_ or anything like that.  


And so what if he liked having the volume on his TV to be kept on 24, or 44 if there were people over and it needed to be louder. It didn't mean anything if when Seabs or Duncs or Sharpie would come over to hang out at his apartment and change the dial to 35, or 37, or god forbid 51 and his skin would crawl until they left and he could set it back to where it belonged.  


No one noticed and like he’d said, it wasn’t a thing. It didn't affect his life.  


Or, it hadn't. Then.  


But after the season ended and the tingling in his fingers and the urge to tap _one, two, three, four_ hadn't gone away, he'd thought not for the first time that maybe, just maybe, _he might actually be fucking crazy._  


He would have to stop, then, and think, _it’s fine_.  


_I’m fine._  


And fuck everything and everyone because he was fine. So fine, in fact, that—  


_his skin would feel tight and he'd have to clench his jaw until finally he couldn't stand it anymore and tap his toes on the tile floor in his kitchen, bent over the sink and breathing hard through his nose. And then it would be okay. The rush of wrong would recede back down to a dull spark in the base of his skull and he could stop white-knuckling the sink porcelain—_  


 _or his bed sheets when he would wake up not being able to breathe, to speak, to think. When all he could hear was the chattering, shattering of his teeth against each other, heart thumping like a death toll and he’d have to knock his closed fist against the nightstand_ one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four _over and over again until he didn't feel like he was dying anymore._  


 _Dealing_ —he was dealing with it.  


It’s fine.  


He’s fine.  


As long as he kept counting, he’d be fine. So fucking fine and no one would ever have to know if maybe he wasn’t always fine, exactly. But dealing. He was dealing with it.  


There were bottles with the labels half peeled off lining the counter of his kitchen, some chilling in the freezer and more empties than he could count in his trash.  


He drank because it made counting less important and if he drank enough and let it muffle his brain so much he wasn’t even sure if he could get to four at all, well, that was almost perfect.  


And every morning he'd wake up—sometimes at his apartment, or on a friend's couch, or at a frat house in Madison, Wisconsin—hungover, nauseous and dehydrated, and tap _one, two, three, four_ before getting up to do it all over again.  


He was dealing with it.  


\----  


The funny part is, _the fucking funniest thing_ about this whole mess is that his name is in the papers more now than it ever was after they'd won the Cup. 

Now—now that he'd gone and fucked up last season, now that he'd gone and gotten drunk and loud, had fun, and for the first time in ten years felt like a normal guy.  


Now the press couldn't get enough of him.  


Trade rumors were an everyday occurrence. Each one more laughable and fucking terrifying than the last.  


He knows the score.  


He gets it.  


He gets it and he knows how his actions reflect on the franchise as a whole.  


He knows but that doesn't stop him from feeling that sinking, shredded feeling he gets when he sees yet another article outlining the many reasons why the Blackhawks should dump his contract, should trade his drunk, unruly and under-performing ass.  


Knowing doesn't stop the tips of his fingers from going a bit numb, and it sure as hell doesn’t stop the tapping that inevitably follows.  


There are six drunk pictures of him on Deadspin, and Kaner hates that that’s what annoys him the most.  


His knuckles rap against the edge of his laptop.  


_one, two, three, four_  


Six pictures? What a fucking joke.  


_one, two, three, four_  


His cell hasn't stopped ringing and signaling new text messages and voicemails since he'd gotten back to Buffalo (Flight 844, so it was okay) and he still couldn't look anyone in the face without seeing disappointment. His mom and sisters were barely speaking to him and his dad had just shaken his head at him (only three times, was the problem) and had told Patrick to lay low for a while.  


So he did. What else was he supposed to do? It was enough to bury his head in the sand and hope for the best when he has to come back out. Deal with it.  


He keeps his head down and deletes most of his messages without even looking at them. Sends a quick _thanks_ to Sharpie after he hears about the interview he'd given, because Sharpie sometimes was a pretty okay guy when he wasn’t being the asshole older brother that Kaner had never wanted.  


He’d skipped over the text from Jonny, saved it for last because he’d already known what it would say and he really just didn’t want to deal with it right then. Didn’t want to read whatever version of _be better_ , or _stop fucking up and giving us a bad name_ Tazer had used this time.  


He waits two weeks (14 days) before actually reading it, and really, it’s exactly what he'd been expecting so he doesn't know why Jonny's _dammit kaner, i can't keep making excuses for you_ makes his stomach drop and he has to press the lock button on his phone four times before being able to set it down on the counter and walk away.  


He trains instead, lifts weights in sets of four, or eight, types _i know_ and _im sorry_ and _fuck you too_ in different texts to Jonny before deleting them all and throwing his phone somewhere in the direction of the couch.  


Fuck Tazer and his sanctimonious bullshit, anyway. Yeah, he'd screwed up, but it wasn’t like he’d been arrested (again). It wasn’t like he’d done something he couldn’t come back from.  


_one, two, three, four_  


It's fine.  


He's fine.  


_Stop._  


\----  


Patrick goes over to his parent's house every Sunday for dinner and every time his dad pats him on the back, his eyes a bit pinched at the sides and he grips Patrick’s shoulders, asks him what weight he's up to, lifting-wise. (140. He’s at one-forty and he says the same thing every time his dad asks because he can’t really bring himself to move up or down from there.)  


His mom's face always seems tight when she first gets a look at him. She fusses and makes unhappy noises about him getting enough sleep. He can feel her concern; the way she looks at him like she's waiting for him to do something (develop narcolepsy? get drunk and kill a hooker? pass out in his mashed potatoes?) makes his hands clench underneath the table and he taps his foot _one, two, three, four_ to keep himself sane, to keep himself normal enough to make it through dessert.  


It must work because she's always smiling like she's relieved when he leaves, hugging him tight and telling him not to work too hard and he nods and waves and takes fourteen steps to his car and drives home, practically falling into bed as soon as he gets there because this shit is hard and he’s always _so tired._  


And if he has to punch his pillow four times _one, two, three, four_ to make it comfortable, well—  


No one's there to see it, anyway.  


It's fine.  


He's fine.  


\----  


Lockout.  


Seven letters.  


Like Bettman.  


Seven letters that make Kaner’s heart and fists clench in his chest and at his sides, makes his toes tap inside of his shoes and his throat go tight because seven is a shit number and it isn’t even or right _at all_ and he can’t deal with it.  


They can’t. They can’t do this. They can’t stop him from playing hockey, stop him from doing the only thing that distracts him enough to stop needing to count every minute of every day. He needs to play. Needs it like the air he has trouble breathing in when he thinks about it and Kaner would gladly give up the money if it meant that they would just _let him play and forget for a couple hours that he’s actually fucking defective._  


Because—because it could get worse.  


The thought makes him lean over the toilet, bile rising in his throat, hands shaky on the ceramic.  


It could get worse, if he lets it.  


 _Ha_ , as if he could stop it if he tried. As if he hasn’t already tried.  


But hockey helps. It’s the only thing that helps.  


It helps him to stop counting.  


He needs to stop counting.  


He holds out for a while, bides his times for as long as he can while Jonny and Sid and Ovie go to New York to try to talk some sense into management.  


But everyday feels worse than the last and when the papers come over from Biel, Kaner can’t sign them soon enough.  


(He’d called Jonny, then, right after he’d signed. He’d left a message because the asshole never answers his phone. He’d told him he was going, that he couldn’t wait anymore and he’d tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. He’d said: _tell me when it’s done. I’ll come back. Just get it done._  


He hadn’t said please, but he’d meant it.)  


His phone had lit up two hours later while he was packing his clothes into neat stacks in his luggage and the text had read: _good luck. theyre lucky to have you._  


_one, two, three, four_  


It’ll be fine.  


He’ll be fine.  


\----  


His mom goes back to Buffalo almost half-way through Kaner’s time in Switzerland. He went with her to the airport, hugged her goodbye, and couldn’t help but feel bittersweet that she was leaving.  


He’d had to hide it from her—the counting—because she knew him too well and she would have noticed and said something and he wouldn’t have been able to deal with that.  


But after she’d left there was nothing stopping him from spending most of his time outside of the rink alone in his temporary apartment counting and tapping and making everything feel a little bit better and a little bit worse at the same time. He saw Jonny’s face get more and more frustrated and pinched with every interview Kaner watched about the CBA negotiations.  


_one, two, three, four_  


Seguin doesn’t notice a damn thing because he’s kind of an idiot and he’s usually too busy looking at Swiss tits or pining for his boy back home. Or boys. Whatever.  


(Sometimes, Tyler asks about Jonny and Kaner taps his thigh with his fingertips and thinks that maybe Segs isn’t as much of an idiot as he’d thought.)  


After what seems like forever, Kaner gets a text in the middle of the night from his agent that the lockout is over.  


His nails click against the glass screen on his phone in the rhythm he’s gotten so used to and he doesn’t stop tapping until Jonny’s text comes in minutes later: a stupid smiley face and an _it’s over_ and he’s on a flight back to Chicago (Flight 432, which really isn't ideal, but whatever, he can deal with it) before the week is done.  


Training camp starts and he hadn't realized how bad he'd gotten in Switzerland, but it’s obvious now that he's back with the Hawks. Now that he’s back with people who are actually kind of observant, who know him—people like Jonny with his stupid shark eyes—and suddenly the constant roar in his head feels so fucking real and sick and crazy. They’re going to see him tap, see him count, see him locking and unlocking his phone and turning the sink on and then off again and they’re going to _know._  


He can’t—  


_one, two, three, four_  


No, no.  


It’s okay.  


He’s okay.  


He’s got this; he can fake it. Like with his parents. They’ll never notice a thing. He’s got it under control.  


_one, two, three, four_  


\----  


It’s two days before the season opener against the Kings, they’re all at the bar and it’s so loud and great and Kaner had almost forgotten how good it could be being back with all these assholes.  


He can’t keep the smile off his face because it’s almost normal. Except it’s not.  


It’s never really normal, with him. Hasn’t been for a while.  


But he’s doing fine. Just fucking fine.  


After his fourth beer he starts shaking his head to the proffered shots, and to the fifth beer that Sharpie offers to buy for him. He wants it. He wants to get fucked up and sloppy drunk and the tequila is calling to him like a siren’s song, but he can’t. He can’t have that.  


There’s a second of suspended breath from the guys when he says no, and Kaner kind of hates how the conversation lags around him and his teammates side-eye him like they’re thinking about the whole Cinco de Mayo fiasco, and he kind of wants to laugh at the same time because that whole thing is so far from his mind right now, it’s almost hilarious.  


But no one actually says anything when he cuts himself off; they all look away and continue their conversations and it almost doesn’t seem strained. Sharpie nods with forced nonchalance and goes off to get the rest of the table drinks and Kaner tries to ignore the way Jonny’s still staring at him from when he heard him tell Sharpie, “No, I’m good with just the four, thanks man.”  


Kaner makes a face at him, the one where he scrunches up his nose and it usually makes Jonny laugh or roll his eyes but now he just keeps on staring and staring.  


Kaner’s neck flushes hot. His skin itches. Jonny doesn’t look away and Kaner can feel his stare boring into his back when he lets his face fall and turns around, making his way to the bathrooms at the back of the bar in a move that’s nothing less than a tactical retreat.  


_one, two, three, four_  


It’s fine.  


He’s fine.  


_He doesn’t know anything. There’s nothing to know._  


If he thinks it enough, maybe he’ll start believing it too.  


_one, two, three, four_  


\----  


For the most part, Kaner thinks he does a damn good job at keeping his crazy under wraps.  


None of the guys notice that his stick hits the ice in a pattern, or when he tries to only tap his toes underneath the cover of socks and shoes because no one can even tell that he’s counting, then.  


He slips up, every now and then, because sometimes it’s impossible to keep his fingers from moving, tapping, on the table or on his locker or the bench. Or when he mouths along with the numbers, silently. No one notices, though. (No one says anything, at least. Kaner ignores the times Tazer’s eyes flick down to his fingers because _shut up he doesn’t know anything._ )  


It’s fine.  


He’s fine.  


No one knows.  


\----  


When Jonny claps him on the back in the locker room after a brutal practice and tells him to come play some Call of Duty at his place, Kaner pauses and turns toward him, immediately suspicious. They haven’t hung out after skates since they’d switched lines, and even then, Jonny never wanted to do much more than eat and fall asleep on his couch after the bag skate torture practice like the one they’d just had. But now Jonny’s voice sounds weird, and when Kaner turns his head to look at him fully, his smile is forced and his hand is still resting awkwardly on Kaner’s bare shoulder blade.  


He wants to say no, seriously considers it because he’s fucking exhausted and feeling a bit wrong, a bit raw. But Jonny’s eyes are hard and a little manic and it doesn't really look like he’s going to let this thing go.  


To be honest, they haven’t even technically hung out _at all_ since the season had started back up, what with the back to back road games and sleeping in separate rooms and Kaner still isn’t sure if he’s relieved or angry at that whole situation.  


But Jonny’s still staring at him and waiting for an answer, mouth getting tenser and tenser by the second, and he can see the weird scrunched look Sharpie’s giving them both and trying to subtle about it out of the corner of his eye.  


Kaner glances at the clock on his phone (it's just after three) and he takes a second, a breath, before nodding. "Sure, man, if you want to get your ass kicked. I just gotta drop some stuff off back at my place. I'll be over at, like, four?"  


Jonny's smile tightens at the edges and Kaner fights the ping in his brain to not tap against the side of his locker. _Stop, stop looking at me like that, like you know something._  


It's fine.  


He's fine.  


There's nothing to know.  


He feels good, now. Solid. Racking up points and wins and he’s been okay. He’s good. There’s nothing to know.  


Tazer looks like he's about to say something but Kaner waylays him with a shove and a disgusted face. "Dude, go shower, you fucking stink."  


It's kind of true. Jonny smells like sweat and ice and _Jonny_ and it makes his mouth go dry, but to anyone else he probably does smell pretty rank.  


Kaner gets a shove in return and an eye roll and he can't help but smile for real for a second, because it's so normal and nostalgic—it feels like it used to, like before, and he turns back to his locker when Jonny walks away and he's still smiling and thinking maybe it would get easier after a while and maybe he wouldn’t have to keep faking it for the rest of his life and he scratches the side of his neck and it has a pattern _one, two, three, four_ before he realizes what he's doing and he—  


Stops.  


Stops smiling, stops moving for the briefest of seconds and stares hard at his hand, suddenly and irrationally angry because did he really think that it would be that easy? Did he really think that this shit would just go away, that he could just snap right out of it like it wasn’t anything? Did he really—  


"Your wrist okay, Peeks?" Sharpie asks, knocking into his shoulder and nodding to Kaner's line of sight.  


Kaner flexes his hand, closing it into a fist and then stretching it back out again, lets out another breath. "Yeah," he says and he lets his hand fall to his side. "Yeah, it's fine."  


It's fine.  


He's fine.  


\----  


Kaner has to sit in his car, parked in the guest spot in Jonny's parking garage for eight minutes because it's 3:52 and he's both annoyed and relieved at the same time because the numbers are right and they feel good but he's still a fucking psycho who can't get it through his head how ridiculous this is and that _it shouldn't matter what time it is._  


_Stop. Just stop. The numbers don’t mean anything._  


He waits until the clock changes to 4:03 just to spite himself and has to shove his hands into his pockets to keep from tapping his thigh to fix it.  


 _Shut up_ , he thinks, rolling his shoulders to try to loosen the tension building at the top of his spine, _there's nothing to fix._  


He kicks Jonny's door when he gets to it because he doesn't want to take his hands out of his pockets yet to knock properly and his sneaker makes four scuffmarks ( _damn it_ ) on the wood and he's still staring at them when Jonny finally opens the door.  


"You're late," he starts, sounding surprised. The skin between his eyebrows is wrinkled, eyes genuinely confused.  


"I know," Kaner says, too quickly and he shuts his mouth with an audible click of teeth on teeth because _obviously I know I’m fucking late you don't think I know exactly how late I am you don't need to tell me I'm late I already know I know I know I know I know_.  


 _Shut up,_ he thinks. _Just shut up._  


"You going to let me in, asshole?" He asks, kicking part of the door again and trying to sound trite, like he doesn't have a cadence of crazy pounding inside of his skull. Like it isn’t getting worse, like he’s fine.  


He _is_ fine. _Shut up._  


Jonny’s expression straightens and he scoffs and steps back from the doorway, swinging his arm out Vanna White-style just to be a dickhead and Kaner can't help smiling and shaking his head.  


"You got any food that isn't total shit around here? I'm freaking starved, man." He asks, stepping past Jonny and into his kitchen and going straight for the fridge. He has to take his hands out of his pockets to open it and he drums them absentmindedly (as if it doesn't have a clear rhythm) against the fridge door while looking unimpressed at all of the nothing Tazer has in there.  


Jonny follows him into the kitchen and leans against the counter. "Not really," he says, shrugging. "We can order out later, if you want."  


Kaner hums in agreement and thinks about grabbing a beer, but goes for a Red Bull instead. He could have four of those tonight and be okay. He'll be wired as fuck and probably piss himself on the way home, but he can deal with it. Besides, Kaner can just imagine the judgment face Jonny'd give him if he tried to get away with having four beers on a weekday and attempted to drive home later.  


"We should get Thai," he says, popping the tab on the can and drinking half of it in one long pull.  


Kaner turns around when Jonny doesn't answer and he's staring at Kaner’s hand, the one not holding the can, and Kaner realizes that he's been tapping the tips of his fingers against his thumb _one, two, three, four_ like Morse Code, like that dude from Homeland and he has to fight to ignore the pressure building in the base of his skull again. He shakes the hand out like it had been cramping and thinks, _shut up, he doesn't know anything, there's nothing to know._  


He leaves Jonny standing in the kitchen and Kaner knows he's watching him leave, hightailing it out into the living room and calling back, "I'll get out the 360. Quit standing there like a weirdo and find me some fucking snacks!"  


Kaner thinks his voice sounds normal, solid and jokingly annoyed. Maybe Jonny was just spacing out, earlier. _He doesn't know anything, shut up._ He can hear Tazer opening and closing cabinets in the other room after a minute and he lets out the breath he’d been holding. His foot bounces against the carpet _one, two, three, four_ and attributes the way his heart feels like it's in his throat to the Red Bull he'd finished chugging.  


The Xbox dashboard just finishes loading when Jonny walks into the living room and lets himself fall onto the couch next to Kaner, close enough that their knees touch. He tosses a mostly empty pack of Twizzlers and another Red Bull onto the coffee table. "Here," he says, nodding to the candy, "that's pretty much all I have."  


There are five sticks left in the bag and Kaner looks at Jonny, who just leans forward to grab the second controller.  


Jonny sounds neutral and kind of bored—normal—and he's not saying anything about the tapping. He must have just been spacing out earlier.  


_He didn't see anything._  


Because there's nothing to see.  


It’s fine.  


He’s fine.  


Kaner eats three pieces of Twizzlers during the first game of Zombies, which he loses, barely, technically, because they're going on KD spread and he has to shove Tazer over on the couch because he goes all smug and annoying for winning. Barely. Technically. "Rematch, asshole."  


Jonny's still smirking like an idiot. "Didn't you say something about kicking my ass? Looks like you're losing your touch."  


_Stop, I’m not losing anything._  


Kaner gives him the finger and grabs a fourth licorice stick out of the bag. "Shut up and hit X."  


Halfway through the second game, Kaner reaches out to snag the last Twizzler and freezes before he gets to it.  


Already had four, can't have the last one.  


He shifts and goes for the Red Bull instead, taking a quick drink and setting it back on the table without looking away from the screen.  


He’s just about to shotgun a zombie in the face when the pause menu pops up and Kaner makes a face. "Dude, what the fuck?"  


He looks over and Jonny's staring at him like he's analyzing a play. It makes his fingers itch.  


"You can have the last one if you want." Jonny says, suddenly, jarringly, and Kaner blinks a few times before asking, "What?"  


Jonny leans forward and grabs the Twizzler bag, holding it open in Kaner's direction and saying, "Go ahead. I don't want any."  


Kaner swallows. "Nah, I'm good." He pats his stomach, "too early in the season to go off diet, you know." _No, I can't have it. That's five. Five is a terrible number._ Makes his skin crawl just thinking about it.  


Jonny's still staring at him like a shark, like a predator, still holding the bag out towards him. "Seriously," he says, "have the last one."  


His heart feels like it's in his throat again. "Seriously," Kaner mimics, "I don't want it." He says it slowly and wants to yell, _drop it_.  


 _Shut up,_ he thinks, _he doesn't know anything._  


There's another minute of silence and Kaner's toes are curling inside of his socks before Jonny shrugs and finally looks away, tossing the bag back on the table and unpausing the game. "Okay."  


 _Shut up,_ he thinks, _he doesn't know anything._  


The whole exchange throws off his game even more. He loses, badly, but there's no gloating this time. Jonny starts up another match and Kaner just tries to breathe.  


 _Shut up,_ he thinks, _he doesn't know anything._  


There's silence in the room, save for the sounds of gunshots and nukes and monkey bombs and Kaner chews on the inside of his lip, counts, _one, two, three, four_ in his head and feels his heart rate start to go back to normal after what seems like forever.  


They’ve almost made it to wave ten when Jonny starts tapping his nail against the side of his controller. The sound breaks Kaner’s concentration— _one, two, three, four, fivesixseven_ —  


 _Stop._ Kaner's jaw clenches.  


He loses. Again. That's three.  


"Fuck you, one more game," he says. Three is worse than five.  


Jonny shifts on the couch and sets his controller back on the coffee table, then stretches his arms up over his head, the very picture of nonchalance. "Nope, I think I'm done. You're sucking too much for it to be fun anymore."  


He says it casually, but he's looking at Kaner again, hard and analyzing like before.  


"Dude, c'mon. One more game. I'm hitting my stride," he whines. "Unless you're afraid you'll lose this time." _Come on, please. One more._  


But Jonny doesn't rise to the bait and Kaner thinks, _shut up. He doesn't know_ —  


"No, I'm good with three," he says.  


_Stop._  


_He doesn’t know._  


Kaner knows the expression on his face is creeping into downright desperation, his voice going high and whiny but he can’t seem to stop it. But Jonny just keeps looking and looking.  


_Stop, stop it._  


_He doesn’t know anything._  


And then Jonny’s eyes go all soft and now it just looks like fucking pity and he says, “Okay, Kaner. We can do four.”  


Fucking _pity_.  


Four, he said four. He knows.  


Patrick can't feel his hands. They’re a mess of numb tendons and bones and skin stretched too tight. The controller falls on his lap. It feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.  


_He knows, he knows, he knows heknowsheknowsheknowsheknowsheknows_  


"Stop."  


He tries to swallow but his tongue feels thick, mouth too dry. "Stop," he says again. His eyes feel hot.  


He knows Jonny's still looking at him, but he can't look away from his own fingers, curled on his lap over the controller, tapping, _one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four_  


"Kaner, breathe, come on. It’s okay, Kaner—Patrick, _breathe_." Jonny’s reaching out his hand and laying it on Kaner’s shoulder, fingers going tighter over the joining of his neck and shoulder like he’s trying to be an anchor.  


He can't—  


He can't do this now.  


He can't do this ever.  


He needs air.  


Patrick's up and off the couch in a second and all but running out of the room, towards the front door. He needs to get out. _Out, out, out, out, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four._  


"Kaner! Wait, c'mon," he can hear Jonny rushing after him, but he jerks back when Kaner holds a shaking hand up in front of him and hisses, _“Stop.”_  


He leaves Jonny standing in his entryway, looking lost and confused and fucking pitying. Kaner is tearing at the inside of his lip with his teeth until he starts to taste salt and copper. He swallows against it and keeps moving, getting out. Getting out, out, out, out.  


His body moves on spiteful autopilot, _one, two, three, four_ steps, one after another. Order restoring with every _one, two, three, four_. His fingers are still tingling, numb.  


He nearly drops his keys outside of his car and he sits down on the driver’s seat as soon as he has it unlocked because he feels like he can't hold himself up right now. He doesn’t bother starting the engine. His legs are tingly, pinpricks of dead limbs.  


Resting his head and hands against the steering wheel, he closes his eyes. Cold and vaguely sick-feeling, he breathes.  


And counts.  


_one, two, three, four_  


_stop_  


_stop, please_  


_one_  


_please_  


_two, three, four_  


Choked, chest so fucking tight like a heart attack and the world spins around him—  


_one, two, three, four_  


_Look, see? See? See how fucking fine I am?_  


_one, two, three, four_  


He starts the car.  


He has to get out of here, he needs to get away.  


So he drives.  


He drives out of downtown, near the suburbs where there’s no one out at this time and the roads are surrounded by trees and spaced-apart houses and he can’t pull himself together before his throat’s closing up.  


It feels strangely sudden and terrifying, hands going numb against the steering wheel and it takes every bit of his concentration to pull his car over to the shoulder and park before he’s tearing the door open and emptying his stomach onto the pavement.  


He sits there for what feels like hours and eventually he stops throwing up for long enough to grapple his phone out of his pocket with hands that shake so badly he can barely keep hold of it. He thinks about calling someone. Asking them to come pick him up. Asking someone to come help him.  


He stares at the phone for a moment longer before letting it slip through numb fingers and tumble somewhere down near the pedals.  


Who would he call, anyway? Sharpie, maybe. What would he say? _Yeah, sorry to bother you, but I think I might be crazy and Jonny knows now, would you mind driving me home? I can’t feel my hands._  


He’s just _so tired_. Tired and shaking and sweating. He feels like he did back in Detroit, on the phone with his mom, crying and begging _please come back take me home please I don’t want to be here anymore I just want to go home._  


He feels thirteen again—small, pathetic, and scared.  


Patrick puts his head between his knees, then, grips onto his elbows and tries not to die.  


\----  


He wakes up when the sun is just barely lighting up the sky.  


He feels like he’s just played ten shifts in a row, sore and stiff curled up in the driver’s seat, knees against the steering wheel. When he looks down, Patrick sees his phone alternating flashes of ‘low battery’ and ‘missed call’ and for a quick second, Kaner can’t remember how he’d gotten there.  


His phone blinks again and he takes a deep breath, counts it.  


His chest is still tight and his knees creak when he unfolds them. “Dammit,” he says, and his voice is scratchy, raw like it’d been overused.  


_one, two, three, four_  


He has to search a little to find his keys, wedged in between his seat and the center console. When he turns the car over, the clock blinks to life. 5:52, it reads and Patrick frowns.  


The skate that morning is optional and he doesn’t spare a second thought on whether or not to go. There’s no way. He can’t—not with his back and legs already cramping up from having slept how he had.  


And Jonny.  


He couldn’t—Kaner couldn’t see him right now. Now that things were different.  


He sighs and rests his forehead on the wheel. For all he knows, Jonny had already called Q, maybe Bowman, and told them about the counting. Probably. It’s his job, after all, as captain to keep them updated.  


Briefly, Kaner wonders if maybe he shouldn’t just start packing now.  


Instead, be breathes, and then keeps his mind carefully blank on the drive back to his apartment.  


He still feels so rough, sharp at the edges walking up to his floor, to his apartment door, then inside. Carefully and purposefully blank and numb and tired. He plugs his phone in on autopilot, avoids looking at the screen, before crawling into bed.  


Carefully and purposefully blank until he can fall asleep again, laying on top of his sheets still sweaty and shivering.  


\----  


His phone wakes him up again, beeping and buzzing on his nightstand, and when Kaner glances over at the clock it reads 4:16. Good.  


He groans and rubs a hand over his face, over his eyes and thinks about going back to sleep but his phone beeps again and the afternoon sun shining into his room is too bright anyway.  


Again, his phone beeps and when he finally looks at the screen he has five missed calls and three voicemails. Two from Jonny and one from Sharpie.  


Patrick stares at his lock screen for a good couple of minutes, tapping and counting against the mattress before bypassing Tazer’s messages and clicking on Sharpie’s instead. He puts it on speakerphone and lets the phone fall to lie next to his head on the pillow. He stares at the ceiling and listens to Sharpie talk.  


_Peeks, pick up your fucking phone. (A sigh) You want to tell me why Tazer’s calling me and asking me if I knew where you are? Because apparently you aren’t at your place, or the bar, or the rink, or anywhere and Jonny’s having a coronary. (A pause) Look, whatever fight you guys had, just forget about it, okay? I’m sure you’ll work it out. Just…just let Jonny know you’re alright._  


Kaner moves to delete the message when Sharpie’s tinny voice pipes up again,  


_Also, you’re a lazy asshole for blowing off optional skate, lamer._  


The message clicks its end and his phone automatically goes onto one of Jonny’s and Patrick can’t help but to hold his breath and tap.  


The first one is only ten seconds long. A serious of shuffling noises and Kaner thinks he can make out an exhale of breath, before the message ends.  


The second one is longer. Kaner waits, tense when it starts with the same silence as before.  


_Kaner—_  


There’s a lengthy pause, and Patrick stays deathly still, eyes going a bit glassy staring up, up, up, up without blinking.  


_Just, text me or something? I called Sharpie and he didn’t know where you were and your doorman said you hadn’t come back and Jesus, Kaner, just let me know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere, okay? Tell me you’re okay._  


Patrick smiles without humor because he thinks he can hear the double question.  


Are you okay?  


(Are you alive?)  


Are you okay?  


(Are you sane?)  


His voicemail beeps and Kaner rolls over just far enough to press the delete button. He’s got a couple texts from some of the guys, mostly bullshit from some of the rookies, a link to something from Erica, and about ten increasingly frantic texts from Sharpie and Jonny.  


He can deal with those later. Or not at all.  


He still feels sore when he maneuvers himself off his bed, still looks pale and exhausted when he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He takes a shower and feels the tightness in his chest lessen with every _click, click, click, click_ of his nails against the shower wall.  


It doesn’t really matter anymore.  


Jonny knows, now. _He knows everything I don’t want him to._  


“Just relax,” he says to himself, and he feels like an idiot, talking to himself in the shower, voice echoing sickly against the tile. But he needs someone to say it. He needs to hear it.  


Jonny knows, now.  


“Just fucking relax and breathe.”  


“Just breathe.”  


\----  


They have an early skate the next morning and even though it’s mandatory, Kaner considers not going for a good hour or so, sitting on the edge of his bed, fingers still wrapped around in his sheets. Tazer must’ve told Q by now. Must have.  


But the minutes kept rolling over on the clock on his cable box and Kaner felt more and more edgy with every tick, so he shoulders his duffle bag and locks his door behind him. He knocks the outsides of his hands against the walls as he walks down to his car, a constant, comforting rhythm. His knuckles are starting to feel sore. He doesn’t care.  


His hands don’t shake on his steering wheel and the inside of his lip only bleeds a little from where he’s chewing on it.  


It’s fine.  


He’s fine.  


He wonders if Q will even let him practice, or if he’ll just scratch him right away, if he’ll realize that dealing with Kaner’s brand of bullshit isn’t worth the hassle. Probably.  


He looks in his rearview mirror only once and thinks again about just turning around and going back home. But he doesn’t, can’t.  


He’s actually early for skate and he waits in his car until the time’s right before shouldering his duffle again and walking into the rink with his head down, the tips of his fingers drumming against his palms.  


Sharpie and Tazer and some of the other guys are already there in the locker room, already suiting up and Kaner already feels like he’s behind. He glances over at Sharpie and ignores the exhalation of breath and the way his shoulders relax a fraction when Kaner walks by and he punches him on the shoulder.  


“You forget how to use a phone?” Sharpie asks him, looking tired.  


Kaner shrugs and says nothing. He wonders if Jonny told Sharpie about the counting. Probably. Why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t owe Kaner anything.  


But when he looks over, Tazer isn’t looking at him at all. He’s resting his head against his locker for a second, a minute before taking a deep breath and going back to dressing. He doesn’t say a thing.  


Kaner walks by him and he can feel the tension between them. He hates it.  


He hates that it’s his fault, again. He’s fucked up again and no amount of counting is going to fix this.  


So he’s going to ignore it, push it to the back of his brain like everything else and pretend. If he pretends that nothing’s changed then maybe Jonny will too.  


Kaner watches Q and Jonny throughout the whole practice, tries to watch and read their lips and catch if his name ever passes between them. It doesn’t, as far as he can see and Kaner resents the relief he feels when practice ends and Q tells them what they need to work on in their game against the Wild that night. He doesn’t give any one player more than a brief glance before he claps once and tells everyone to go home and get some rest.  


Kaner can feel Jonny steal glances at him after they shower and start getting redressed in their street clothes. He ignores it and snaps his towel at Shawzy instead and fakes it and fakes it until he leaves.  


Kaner’s shoes squeak on the linoleum in the hallway and so do Jonny’s, a couple feet behind him.  


_one, two, three, four_  


Jonny’s still there behind him when Kaner makes it back to his car and he throws his duffle into the backseat before he turns around and the knuckles of his hand bang up against the siding of his truck and he says, “Jonny—”  


And Jonny lurches forward like he can’t help it and he pulls Kaner towards him, hugging him like he’d just won the Stanley Cup again.  


Kaner is surprised stiff, words stillborn on his tongue and his face is pressed into Jonny’s shoulder. He tries to jerk back, away, but Jonny’s arms just tighten around him, blunt fingers digging into the backs of his shoulders.  


“Shut up,” he mutters against Kaner’s hair. “Just shut up, Kaner.”  


They stay there like that for a couple counts of four, tapped out against the outside seam of Kaner’s jeans before he exhales and forces himself to relax in the hold because he knows Jonny won’t let go until he does. He shuts his eyes and throws one of his arms around Jonny’s back.  


“Did,” he says, aborted, into the material of Jonny’s t-shirt because he can’t help himself. Like everything, it’s a compulsion.  


He tries again.  


_one, two, three, four_  


“Did you tell them?”  


Jonny pulls back, arms slipping away from him and looks at him in confusion, eyebrows drawing together. “Tell who what?”  


Kaner licks his dry lips and stares somewhere over Tazer’s right shoulder and he stuffs his hands into his pockets.  


“Management. Q,” he clarifies. He feels the syllables stick in his throat. “Did you tell them what’s wrong with me?”  


Jonny’s face smoothes out to something like pointed neutrality and he huffs out a small laugh, just a breath, and says, “No,” with finality.  


Jonny turns like he’s going to go back to his own car and Kaner’s hand shoots out and snags around Jonny’s wrist before he can help himself. He asks, hisses it out between his teeth and lips and he knows his fingers are clenching and unclenching around Jonny’s skin in a pattern he no doubt recognizes, “Why?”  


And Jonny just stares at him considering for a beat and answers like it’s obvious, like it’s nothing at all.  


“Because there’s nothing wrong with you.”  


He leaves Kaner standing there, slipping out of his slack grip, leaves him there with eyes wide and his mouth open to say something but he doesn’t know what.  


_one, two, three, four._  


He watches Jonny walk away.  


He can’t. He just—  


But, maybe.  


Maybe.  


\----  


He gets a goal and an assist in the game that night and Jonny’s not on the ice with him, but when Kaner goes back to the bench Jonny taps their helmets together and it has a _one, two, three, four_ count and he’s smiling when he vaults over the boards for his own shift.  


They win and even though Kaner still has to flip the light switch on and off and on and off and on again when he gets back to his apartment and check the lock the same way, he’s still smiling.  


Because maybe.  


Maybe.  


\----  


It’s not that Kaner’s getting better. Because he’s not. But he thinks that maybe he’s not getting worse, because he doesn’t feel the same panic he did before when he counts around Jonny.  


Because sometimes Jonny does it for him.  


Sometimes he brushes the tips of his fingers against Kaner’s thigh underneath the table in his pattern at team dinners or at the bar like he can feel it when Kaner goes a bit frayed around the edges.  


It’s great until it isn’t, because it makes Kaner sloppy.  


So sloppy that he doesn’t even notice it when he’s pushing the lock button on his phone again and again when a bunch of the guys are over at Jonny’s having a gaming tourney. He’s just clicking and clicking and clicking and clicking away and Jonny isn’t anywhere near him but Seabs is and he asks, “What’s wrong with your phone?”  


And Kaner says, “Huh?” Because what? Nothing’s wrong with his phone and he looks down at it to see what Seabs is talking about and he watches himself push the button and he just kind of stops.  


His heart rises to his throat again and he knows Seabs is giving him a weird look and he doesn’t know what to say.  


He can’t.  


How did he ever think he could?  


There’s no maybe, no maybe.  


He just can’t.  


“Your phone still giving you problems, Kaner?” Jonny’s voice sounds out from the mouth of the kitchen and Kaner still can’t say a thing. His throat is going so, so tight.  


“You should just buy another one. Hey,” he turns to Seabs. “It’s your turn to play.” He nods in the direction of the living room where everyone else is and he waits until Seabs has left the kitchen to take up the controller and they’re alone before he wraps a hand around the back of Kaner’s neck.  


“Kaner, breathe,” he says so fucking low and quiet and commanding. He’s swiping the pad of his thumb against the skin underneath Kaner’s ear.  


_one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four_  


“There,” he says when Kaner closes his eyes and sucks in air through his teeth. “You’re okay.”  


_What’s wrong with me?_  


_Why can’t I be normal?_  


_You lied, Jonny, you fucking lied. I’m fucked up and you lied. I’m not okay._  


Kaner shoves Jonny’s hand away and stuffs his phone into his pocket. He calls out a quick goodbye to the guys and ignores the fact that they send out questioning words at his back when he closes the door behind him.  


He walks back to his apartment, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket. He counts his steps out loud. It’s under his breath, but he puts his voice to the numbers so the vibrations in his throat can make it real.  


His phone is buzzing with a call that he ignores.  


It’s like he forgets. He keeps on forgetting that he’s not normal, no matter what Jonny says or does and all it’s doing is fucking with him. It’s making him complacent and it’s a wonder someone hasn’t noticed and called him out on it before now.  


Fuck, maybe the whole team knows. Probably.  


He’s been so careless. So fucking careless and he forgot that he wasn’t normal.  


He walks and counts and watches to make sure that he’s not stepping on any cracks and eventually he makes it back to his apartment and then it starts all over again because he has to flip the light switches and lock the door and click his phone and he’s just so tired.  


He leaves his phone on the kitchen counter and lays face down on his couch. His head is burrowed in between the cushions and he likes that it makes it harder to breathe. He scratches the fabric with his blunt nails.  


_See? I’m not fine at all._  


_There’s no maybe._  


“One, two, three, four,” he says out loud, muffled into the stuffing.  


_There’s no maybe._  


He just wants it to stop.  


\----  


He wakes up later because there are noises in his kitchen. A cabinet opens and closes, glasses clink against each other and the sink runs. No one else other than Sharpie and Jonny have keys to his place, and Kaner would bet a year’s salary on who it is dicking around in there.  


He doesn’t bother getting off the couch, just rolls over so that he faces out into the room and watches Jonny walk out of his kitchen with a glass of water and lean against the wall there.  


They stare at each other while Jonny sips and the silence sounds loud.  


“I don’t get you,” Kaner says eventually. Because it needs to be said.  


Jonny hums and takes a drink and doesn’t say a thing.  


“You catch me and you know and you cover for me and I don’t—I just don’t get you.” Kaner pushes himself up so he can stand up and move so he’s in front of Jonny and he narrows his eyes. “You count _for_ me. Why do you do that?”  


Jonny takes another drink before stretching over and setting his half full glass on the dining table. “Do you want me to stop?” He asks before he’s even straightened back up.  


“Yes. No. I just want to know why.”  


Jonny huffs out a laugh and Kaner feels an angry spark somewhere low in his stomach. _He’s laughing at me._  


“I’m not laughing at you,” Jonny says and Kaner’s not sure if he said it out loud or Jonny is just that fucking tuned in. “I just—do you really not know why?”  


_Maybe, maybe._  


“Don’t, don’t fucking coddle me, okay? I know what I am and I know it’s fucked up. Don’t treat me like a kid.”  


Jonny’s eyes are hard and hot and his hand is back, curling around the back of Kaner’s neck and he pulls him closer, crowds him, and his breath fans out over Kaner’s mouth.  


“Wasn’t planning on it,” he says and it’s so easy for him to close his mouth over Kaner’s. It’s so easy to breathe heavy through his nose and lick inside Kaner’s mouth, slick and hot.  


It’s so easy for Kaner to press up and up and twist his hands in the cotton of Jonny’s shirt, stretching the collar out of shape and kiss back harder.  


Neither of them wants to take the time to say anything; to breathe means to separate and neither of them is ready to admit that they might be drowning.  


_Maybe, maybe._  


Kaner keeps losing count in his head with every new press of Jonny’s lips, his tongue curling and licking and fucking into his mouth makes his brain short out and the moan he can’t help but make is half-strangled. He presses closer.  


Jonny’s hand dips underneath the material of Kaner’s shirt and his fingernails leave dull scratches against the skin on his lower back.  


“ _Fuck_ ,” he curses and jerks forward with a stutter of his hips. Jonny presses back, grinding forward and against Kaner and they both let out a heavy breath at the friction it causes.  


“Kaner,” Jonny breathes out when he moves to bite and suck at the skin of Kaner’s jaw. The sharp edge of his teeth makes his heart stutter-stop in his chest and he pushes Jonny away before grabbing his wrist and pulling him out of the living room and down the hallway to his bedroom.  


They’re both laughing when Kaner shoves Jonny over so he lands and bounces on the bed and Kaner climbs on top of him. His fingers are tapping against Jonny’s collarbone and he’s smiling like he doesn’t care, like he really might not care.  


_Maybe, maybe._  


Jonny fucks him like he’s reverent and Kaner feels as stupid about it as it sounds. They’re both so fucking loud, he’s surprised the neighbors don’t come knocking. Their skin is sweat-slick and gross and the two of them together like this has no right to be this good.  


He loses the count again sometime between the time when Jonny gets a hand on his dick and when he makes him come minutes later, choking on spit and sound.  


Kaner doesn’t have time to catch his breath before Jonny’s pressing his mouth against his neck and shoulder, biting and leaving marks and his hips stutter and he groans low, so low in his chest and kisses the count right back out of Kaner’s slack mouth.  


_One, two, th—_  


_Maybe, maybe._  


\----  


Patrick wakes up in the middle of the night gasping and his eyes are wide and facing the ceiling and he can hear Jonny breathing slow and quiet beside him, asleep. He hopes Jonny'll stay that way.  


He hopes and hopes and hopes and hopes—  


But then he turns over to look at his phone on his bedside table and stares and stares until he can't stand it anymore and taps _one, two, three, four_ on the hardwood. Only four. Always four.  


He can't—  


Jonny shifts behind him and he wraps his forearm tight around Patrick’s stomach and pulls him back until they lie flush. His mouth is pressed against the back of Patrick’s neck and his fingers scratch lightly at Patrick’s stomach in a pattern.  


Patrick closes his eyes and counts along with Jonny’s scratches.  


He knows that he’ll wake up tomorrow morning and he’ll hope it’ll suddenly be gone. This thing. He just wants it to be gone.  


So he sleeps and waits for morning.

  


Patrick has this thing with numbers.


End file.
